


Rooftop Dances

by BluBooThalassophile



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Drama & Romance, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Established Relationship, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-09 05:30:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11662590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluBooThalassophile/pseuds/BluBooThalassophile
Summary: Selina met Bruce, she never expected to love him, not for as long as she has. She's seen Robins fly, she's seen a good man shatter, she's hated him, she's loved him, but through it all, they've always had a rooftop dance between them. She'll never be a good girl, not for anyone, not even for him, but it didn't stop her from loving him.





	1. Rooftop Dancing

Selina had probably always loved him, ever since they were kids. Different kinds of love, of course, but she’d loved him all the same.

The first time she ever saw Bruce Wayne, not in the papers of course, but in person, was on the worst night of his life. She’d witnessed his parents’ murders, heard his screams of anguish, and she could still hear those screams on the bad night. And those screams had made her hard, young, cynical heart bleed for another human who wasn’t Ivy for the first time in a long time. So she’d tried to help him out, Gordon seemed like a straight shooting kind of guy, so she went out on a limb and trusted a cop for the first time ever in her young life. Of course that went horribly but that was another matter entirely.

The first time she met Bruce Wayne she had been told she was safe. That broken kid was so genuine Selina had just wanted to guard him against the world, and scratch the eyes out of anyone who dared to come near him. The kid was wicked smart too, a bit of a stiff, but holy shit, he was so fucking smart! Selina couldn’t keep up half the time with his thought process though she did try. But the kid was clearly a genius which worried her a bit because at that time he was so damn trusting. Seriously, if someone offered the kid an ice cream cone out of a pedophile van he might have taken it not knowing to be afraid.

However, his friendship was a shock to her life; and actual damn frustration at times.

Not that it mattered, she loved the kid, and for a long time she was convinced that love was platonic, at least until one of those preppy prep school princess started looking in his way. He was fifteen, growing into his jaw, growing tall like a fucking weed, and had this voice he was breaking into. Bruce was going to be a handsome man, and those princesses were not worthy of him, at all. Selina had initially dismissed her possessive feelings as looking out for a genius level, naïve kid who she’d come to care about despite all the hells, the troubles, the antics, and disruptions he caused to her simple life.

She was sixteen the first time she’d seduced him, neither had really expected it, neither had planned it, and neither had stopped it. Selina loved knowing that later, despite all the others, she’d been his first, like he’d been hers. Bruce left Gotham shortly thereafter, left her with a goodbye note, and Wayne Manor was shut up for the first time in her memory.

Of course, she’d been concerned, but then again she had her own life and her own worries to worry about as she sharpened her thieving skills. She wasn’t staying down in the gutter for forever. There wasn’t much time for her to worry about her friend as she struggled to survive on her own.

Quickly she built up a rep for her skills, and she was good too. All she had was her juvie record, which she’d disposed of because  she was that good.

It was when she was turning twenty-six that it hit the papers: Gotham’s Prince Returns!

Selina had snatched up a copy despite herself and just stared at the cover image of him. Her cold, hard heart did that annoying thing it usually did when she saw him and she just stood there in the fog, the sleet, and the cold staring at his image. The tender barked at her and she paid for the paper as she walked home to her nice penthouse to read this. Curled up on her favorite chair she owned she scratched Isis’ head as she stared at the image of him.

He hadn’t changed, well, that wasn’t true, he had. He’d grown into those looks he’d been coming into. A nice strong, square jaw, those icy blue eyes of his. God, he was so handsome and tall, thick, he’d really grown up well. She smiled a bit as she read his story.

Of course, she wasn’t going to see him.

She’d changed, he changed, they weren’t kids anymore.

Selina went to London to steal a Bast statue. Which lead to her staying away from Gotham for a bit. Well, a bit turned out to be a year, and she hadn’t paid attention to Gotham news, so upon her return, for a job to liberate a rare diamond she had gotten a hell of a shock to her system.

Her first encounter with the Bat had been a true shock. He’d intercepted her on the roof as she was running, free as a cat and then she wasn’t. The man was huge, shit he’d scared her, she swung hard, he evaded, and for a man that size he was fast. Really fast. Kicking for his gut, he caught her leg, his voice was gruff and it sent a thrill down her spine. Even despite how he was dressed; seriously!? The man must have had mental issues or something! He was dressed as a Bat!

Somehow that was a massive turn on even as she struggled to keep her prize for the first time in over a decade, but the man was relentless. Eventually, she was teetering on the edge when she felt the call was about her life or the diamond. Selina lost the battle, but the war was far from over as she scampered off after she blew him a kiss, tossed the stranger a wink and skedaddled like no one but she could. She knew she’d left him in the dust, and felt a thrill down her spine at the thought of going toe to toe with him again.

Over the next year she and Batman went toe to toe more and more often, often leaving them at a draw, but the thrill of it got to be so much more fun. It was like a game, or a seduction, he was so serious, and such a tease, and she couldn’t help but be drawn to him. Like a moth to the flame. The first time they’d kiss, she tackled him off the roof in hopes of startling him. He’d ended up startling her, when he whispered her name in a ragged tone, and he’d saved her as he snatched her prize away and disappeared into the night.

Now it was an obsession, she would figure out who the Bat was, she would do it. He was so familiar to her, and yet so different she was trying to figure it out. He was far too familiar for her not to know. But she couldn’t place her finger on it.

Bruce Wayne’s takeover of his family’s company was news which had her cheering the awkward genius kid she’d once known, and she hoped he could change the world. His revamping project in the area she’d once lived in, the same neighborhood she’d let him live with her in, was his first of many changes. The man proved himself to be Gotham’s White Knight, even if he was uncharacteristically involved with so many women. Selina didn’t like the feeling her gut would get when she saw the headlines of his latest conquest. Some small vicious part of her wanted to claw their eyes out, but she couldn’t. Her claim on Bruce had long since ended, she’d been his first though, and that held her a special spot in his life no matter what was to come.

Her rooftop dance with the Bat continued to escalate. Their game of Cat and Bat became more of a seduction, a dance they both excelled at as they pushed themselves. The kisses turned into something more, she couldn’t get enough of that flavor of his. He was something cold, a bit metallic, but damn he tasted divine, and she was hooked. Besides, she liked having him all over her, the man was huge. It was during one of these make out sessions that it clicked in her mind who he was, as she let him ravish her.

He had obviously gotten more skilled, but it was the way he touched her which had her biting her lip to keep from whispering his name, his real name as she clung desperately to him. Bruce, he was Bruce, the hard, imposing, intimidating, terrifying Bat was the dorky, awkward, naïve kid she’d loved. He clearly had grown up a lot, and to be kind of honest, she wanted to know more about him as she brought his lips to hers again. She’d missed him so much.

She decided to pay him a little visit, as she pulled on an elegant evening gown and a mask for a masquerade ball he was throwing at the museum, she had work there and she wanted to see him. Slipping in wasn’t a problem, even as she cased the joint.

“It’s been a very long time, Miss Kyle,” his voice was behind her which had her red lips curling a bit as she tilted her head back. Fuck he’d gotten tall, she was an average athletic woman, standing at five foot six, but Bruce, he now towered over her.

“Not as long as you’d like me to believe,” she informed him. Bruce blinked as his lips curved a bit. “Been a while kid, how’s life treatin’ ya!?”

Bruce laughed, a real laugh she’d later learn, not one of his social laughs. “I suppose alright, and you?”

“You know me, always surviving,” she purred.

“Uh-huh, you can return my father’s watch to me, Selina,” he dryly mused.

“Just wanted to see if I had taught you anything,” she promised holding up the watch. He shook his head in exasperation no doubt, and she smiled innocently. She’d kind of forgotten how much she had loved him. Even as her stomach was all in a flutter, and there was a heat pulsing in her blood which made her want to kiss Bruce Wayne the way he’d kissed her last night when he’d been the Bat. But she didn’t, she’d let him keep the illusion for now, that she didn’t know. It was for the best, people like Joker, and Penguin would kill to know who the Bat was, and she didn’t want it known she knew.

Catching up with Bruce was so much fun, she hadn’t even remembered to case the joint. Oh well. There was always later.

Two weeks later it was in the news that Bruce Wayne had been at the circus when the Flying Graysons died leaving behind an orphan. Bruce was photographed with the boy, and her heart bled a bit for the kid, and for Bruce.

Two months later was the biggest news to ever hit Gotham press, ever. Even she’d been thrown by this loop. Bruce Wayne takes in Circus Kid.

The rooftop dances between her and Bruce slowed a bit, but she figured it was single parenthood and wondered if she should swing up to the Manor or something as Selina to say hi and meet the kid. It was for the best though if she didn’t. After all, she had never fully won Alfred over, though as a kid she hadn’t been trying to. She supposed now though she should have, Alfred Pennyworth had been a pretty cool, but terrifying, dude.

Nearly eight months later the Bat had a partner. She’d been livid! Not because he had a partner, no, but rather because he was willingly putting a kid into this life; after all the shit they’d been through as kids! Oh, she was furious, she was about to march right up to that Manor and give Bruce a piece of her mind, she didn’t care if she ousted him on his little secret, this should not be left to stand! Richard Grayson was a kid; and she had no doubt that’s who was behind the colorful mask and in that green speedo trapezing through the city as if he were born to fly.

However, the first night she officially met Robin, was her first night back from a job in Rome. She was tired, she was hunting up Bats, dressed as the Catwoman, and she knew that was the fastest way to catch him. She was not however planning to meet the kid who was going to be the focus of her talk.

There was a cackle behind her, she turned just as he threw some of Bat’s favored toys at her which had her evading and the kid came at her. He was bright, he was angry, he was so full of life she went easy on the kid as he attacked her.

“Mind telling me what it is I did here squirt?” Selina asked as he came at her with some impressive flying kicks, she caught his ankle and dangled him over the side of the building, he was smiling though. Damn he was tiny; he was what? Ten, eleven?

“Well, you’re Catwoman, you’re a bad guy, I’m gonna catch you!” he stated impatiently. It was that tone, just that impatient, black and white tone Bruce had had as a kid which had her softening and warming up to the kid. She sighed.

“Kay squirt, if I put you back on the roof, you have to promise not to attack me,” Selina said.

“And if I don’t?”

“Well, I don’t mind tying up the Bat’s brat for a bit, and waiting for him to come for you, I need a chat with him anyways,” she purred.

“He’s not my dad!” the boy shouted.

“Never said he was,” she stated. The kid’s optic eyes were assessing her before he nodded, and she set him on the roof; kid was tiny, she’d put him at maybe eight pounds, and he was on the leaner side. However, she was seeing he was a hell of a gymnast. “So, what’s eatin’ ya, squirt?”

And thus started her relationship with the Robins, though at the time she didn’t know it’d be more than one Robin to come.

Dick was the kid’s name, she’d later learn he was ten, could not sit still for five minutes, he had a motor mouth, he was bright, happy for the most part, but there was an anger in him which had her thinking the worst could come. She would keep an eye out on the kid and Bruce.

Ivy met Harley that year too, and love sprung up for her redheaded friend who pined for the blonde. But the blonde was trapped in that toxic relationship with the Joker, and Selina knew there was nothing to be done to save Harley or Ivy from this. Even as Ivy went about befriending Harley. It was like a sick twisted game for the Joker though, and Selina couldn’t stop it.

Then there was the matter of her own complicated relationship with Bruce, and Batman, because she knew Bruce knew she knew who he was. It was complicated. The years slipped by, the game between them manifested into quickies, and late nights, early mornings, unspoken agreements between the two of them that it wasn’t serious, this was just a release from the tensions between them. She had even said as much on morning after as she walked around her penthouse wearing his shirt.

Bruce had had her bent over her counter and screaming his name in minutes when she’d said she’d find a better lover.

Yeah, no, she wasn’t going to find a better lover, it just wasn’t possible. Bruce, a man skilled in fighting styles that were extinct, and the world’s greatest detective, was almost a god in bed (or anywhere else for that matter), and she’d never had better sex, ever.

Dick was sixteen when he ran off to Blüdhaven, Bruce had been frantic to find him. Selina had ended up in the car with her friend (lover Bruce may be, but he was also a friend to her and had been for a very long time), and drove with a madman all the way to Blüdhaven. Selina wasn’t there for the fall out between Dick and Bruce, she’d gone on a walk, beat the shit out of two would be muggers who’d have probably been rapists if she didn’t happen to be good at ass kicking.

The drive home was rode in silence.

Whatever was said, it must have hurt because Bruce didn’t seem like himself, though he seemed relieved a bit. Selina just let it be, she’d talk to Dick later, they had a standing weekly call she’d started shortly after their first encounter.

Blüdhaven’s new hero was Nightwing, Selina laughed a bit at Dick’s flamboyant costume, he looked like some Egyptian pharaoh wanna be. But the kid was smiling again, and she was told he talked to Alfred regularly. He had forged some papers making himself eighteen as he applied to the Blüdhaven Police Academy, and Selina promised to show for his graduation. Bruce would show as well, she knew that about Bruce, but whether or not he’d interact with Dick was a different matter. For as smart as Bruce was, he was not good with emotions which was why she and her lover weren’t on speaking terms at the moment.

It was a short six months later that Bruce appeared in the news with one Jason Todd as his ward. Selina had been infuriated, especially when the kid had donned on Robin for the first time. She was outraged on Dick’s behalf, and she would have had a shouting match with Bruce if the night she met Jason.

The Crime Alley was so thick in his voice, even as he tried to hide it, he had a cigarette in his hand, and the kid was small, smaller than Dick, he was twelve and he was smaller than Dick had been at twelve. The moment she saw the newest bird, she had faltered in her conviction to yell at Bruce. Especially when she started talking to the kid, she got it, she got the kid, she felt a kinship to the kid. More than she’d felt for Dick, or Bruce. This Robin was special, he made her smile. The kid was sharp, he was special, and she could see what Bruce saw with Jason, she really could. But it didn’t excuse him replacing Dick so Bruce would still get a piece of her mind. Though Jason quickly became one of her favorite people in and out of the life, he was just a bundle of life, despite the pain of his life, that kid was alive, and damn if she didn’t love him.

When Bruce’s… you know, she wasn’t even sure what that woman was to Bruce, but when Talia al Ghul showed it wasn’t good.

Selina wanted to scratch the woman’s eyes out, but she’d gone to New York on a job. She got back to her apartment though and Bruce was a wreck, not Batman, Bruce, and Jason was frantically calling, and everything was a mess; and she knew it was bad when even Alfred called her. After calming both Alfred and Jason down, and Dick who’d called after the panicked calls he’d gotten from Alfred and Jason when no one knew where Bruce was, she when about soothing Bruce. She didn’t know what had happened, he didn’t say, but it was apparent that Talia was behind this and Selina swore if she ever saw that woman again she’d scratch her eyes out. Bruce left that night.

The years blurred, and Selina remembered shattering one day when she flipped on the news.

It’d been a bit since she’d talked to Jason, he’d called because he was mad at Bruce’s lecture and she’d patiently waited while he ranted and raved. When he was done they had chatted a bit about his school, a girl he was thinking to ask to homecoming but was nervous because Jason was Jason, and he didn’t think he stood a chance. She had given him a pep talk promised to talk soon, and they’d hung up.

Now she collapsed seeing the news, and the footage as the coffin was wheeled off the plane with Bruce there. She screamed, she cried, she wept, and she hated the world for stealing that bright boy away. A kid who had been so damn proud to get out of the Alley, to have a shot at life, and to live, he’d had a future, he’d had hope, he had a life.

Selina didn’t go to the funeral, she went underground to weep her sorrows away. But she couldn’t stay there. No, she couldn’t. She had slapped Harley upon sight for Jason’s death and screamed and raged at the blonde for her lover’s crime, she had nearly scratched Ivy’s eyes out when Ivy had intervened. Selina hated the clowns, and she wanted them dead, and if she ever encountered Joker, God have mercy on him because Selina would have no mercy. The Joker had broken her Robin, and Jason had been hers, just as Dick had been, and she took that personally, though she knew Bruce wouldn’t kill the Joker, she would. If Selina ever encountered clown he was dead, and she’d consider every second in prison for his death worth it. No questions asked.

It was shortly after Bruce didn’t save the Joker from a helicopter crash and they thought the Joker dead that there was an invasion. The Darksied invasion a few months after Jason’s death, which spurred the hero world into action not that she was involved with that. No, Selina had kept a low profile, helping out the little guys, keeping kids safe. Making sure the people no body would save were safe, because that was what Jason would have wanted. Not that she was a saint the entire time. A lot of precious gems left uncared for found their way into her possession. By the end of the invasion the Justice League had officially been formed; it’d been unofficially formed for a few years now.

Six months after Jason’s death she caught the news, and her fury knew no bounds as she stormed to Gotham to shred the pretender wearing her birds’ costumes. She knew Dick was west coast with the Robin costume, eighteen and he hated it. But he was keeping it. The new kid though had it, and she was going to shred him like mincemeat. Then she’d rip her lover apart.

However, before she ran into Bruce she encountered the newest baby bird donning the Robin suit. The kid had a homemade suit; and trust her, she knew the difference. The littlest bird yet, he was about Jason’s size, or smaller, he was sweet, cute, a bit innocent too, and God the hero worship that kid had for Jason. Selina couldn’t hate that kid. His name was Timothy, Timothy Drake, and fuck did she ever come to love that baby bird.

Bruce took to the kid too, he reigned back on some of his more violent tendencies, he didn’t smile anymore, but he softened a bit.

It was after meeting Tim that Selina finally made good with Ivy and Harley. Ivy and she worked on getting Harley out of the relationship with the Joker; mostly so Selina could kill the fucker and not have to deal with a weepy Harley. It wasn’t easy, Harley was used to the Joker’s abuse, and Ivy wasn’t having anymore of it. Selina was only helping because when she stopped and thought about it, Harley didn’t have anything to do with Jason’s death and could be forgiven for poor taste in lovers. Ivy’s reasons for wanting Harley out was because Ivy was fully in love with Harley, so Selina had surrendered to help, knowing just how much love sucked.

She visited Jason on his fifteenth birthday, the grave was undisturbed, quiet, he was with his mother, Catherine, whom he’d loved very much. Selina pulled a small little figurine for the boy, something she had from her mom she’d intended to give to Jason because he’d shared a similar love for his mother as she had hers, and both had lost their mothers young to then been on the streets. Selina knew what that was like, which was why she’d looked out for Jason so much.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, and I’m so sorry Bruce couldn’t save you,” she whispered to the grave as she stood there for a long time alone in the August heat staring at his name. Too young to have really lived, too young to have known so much pain, and yet, she didn’t think she’d met a more empathetic, or compassionate soul in all her years of life. The world was just a bit dimmer without Jason Todd in it.

The first time Bruce came to her bed was a year after Jason’s death, the grief was something shredding her lover and her, she cried that night, and though they ended up in bed he didn’t touch her. There were no words spoken, no touches exchanged, no love between them, they only hung onto one another as April twenty-seventh tore them apart internally.

Dick called her shortly thereafter, she’d been shocked to hear from the now eighteen year old, he was not happy, still serious and so unlike himself, commanding, and trying to embody Bruce’s persona of being tough. He’d taken the mantle Robin, though Tim still had Robin and Bruce had taken to training Tim too. Dick was still stubbornly clinging to Robin to try to oust the kid so another Jason didn’t happen.

It wasn’t working. Mostly because ‘Batman needs a Robin’ was Tim’s motto, and Tim was doing this for Jason.

As the call progressed Selina heard all about Dick’s new team, the Cyborg from the invasion, an alien princess named Starfire (Selina was pretty sure the kid was in love, not like with Barbara, but full head over heels in love with the alien princess), there was a greenling, named Beast Boy, and then there was a sorceress, Raven. Selina listened in amusement at Dick’s frustrations, but she thoroughly enjoyed the call all the same.

The first time her lover touched her was a year and a half after Jason’s death, and actually she came onto him. She couldn’t stop herself because she’d missed him, missed their dance, missed them. Billionaire Bruce Wayne was a family man, and still a ‘player’ according to the papers, but she knew he was done with his wild ways, he wasn’t looking for relationships, he wasn’t seeking companionship, Jason’s death had been the thing which had shattered him. He acted so alone

Oh, her lover wasn’t alone, not by a long shot had his boys, angry Dick, sweet Timothy, and the newest addition was Timothy’s little girlfriend, Spoiler. Bruce had Alfred still, and he had her, but Selina didn’t think he’d ever fully recover from losing Jason. Instead, she decided to love him broken and all because she hadn’t ever stopped loving him even when he pissed her off, even when he hurt her, even when she wanted to hate him for bringing those boys into her life only for her to lose one.

That kiss had lead to a weekend where they both forgot about their games, forgot about the Bat and the Cat, and just let themselves feel. She reacquainted herself with his old scars, and some new ones he’d collected over the year she hadn’t seen him and she loved him. She just let herself go as she loved him, for she’d always love Bruce, the ever awkward man he was, for he was awkward when he was himself and not being the Bat, or Brucie, or Bruce Wayne CEO, or any of his other personas. And she loved Bruce, sweet, awkward, dorky, broken Bruce.

Selina was never going to be a good girl, she knew it one night when their rooftop dance resumed. The Cat and the Bat, they danced with one another, and Selina thoroughly enjoyed their dance again.

Again the years blurred.

Harley finally ditched the clown, Selina had helped Harley and Ivy move into their new place, the lovers were now happy. Though there was a long road ahead for Harley.

Bruce got a daughter, he adopted two assassins’ neglected daughter. Her name was Cassandra, and Selina didn’t know what to make of the new comer other than she adored Bruce, which was cute and it furthered lightened Bruce up to being closer to who he had been before Jason’s death.

Tim joined the Titans, as Robin, he was very proud of this and told her all about it one night when he’d intercepted her on a jewel heist. She had listened with pride and amusement at the littlest bird’s accomplishments, and she hadn’t been too upset about losing her score that night.

Dick took up Nightwing after it was clear Tim wasn’t dropping Robin, and actually, Dick had kind of come around to Tim. Though Selina would testify that Tim was a very pushy, invasive, but likeable kid, one who she looked out for far better than she had Jason. Joker was not taking another of her birds, well they weren’t hers’ technically, the kids were Bruce’s but a the kids were hers’ in a smaller way, and she loved them all.

The year the Red Hood tore through Gotham was the year of the biggest change, and it wasn’t necessarily for the worse. No, Red Hood had taken over the crime underworld, he had a network superior to Bruce’s of informants, and gangs, and weaponry. He’d decimated Black Mask, which she could not find to be a bad thing since Black Mask had killed five of her best fences for fun. He’d also driven Maroni’s forces back and claimed all the working girls; who were no longer terrorized or threatened but actually taken care of.

Of course Bats didn’t like the Red Hood’s methods, and the war between the Bat and Red Hood was of legendary skill. Whoever the Red Hood was, he was good, he was very good, he could almost match Bruce punch for punch, pound for pound, and round for round. The only major difference was, unlike Bruce, the Red Hood was not afraid to kill, as she learned one night when she’d encountered him. Selina was moving off her score’s run to intervene on a gang rape.

Red Hood had gotten there first.

Five dead would-be rapists later, and him jotting down a number for the victim to call before he walked her home.

The Red Hood was lethal, but what Bats didn’t see was what she’d seen, he had compassion, perhaps not for the ones he killed, but for the victims. Bruce didn’t see that, but Bruce hadn’t seen what she’d seen, which made her only respect the Red Hood and leave him to his business as she went about hers. She wasn’t going to tangle with him anytime soon.

She’d been in Venice when the news of the Red Hood’s disappearance hit the Gotham papers. She’d come home only to find a very conflicted looking Bruce sitting on her bed looking as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. He’d aggressively, and passionately taken her, as to what was bothering him, she had no idea. Again.

Selina found out about Oracle quite by accident, she’d remembered the crippled Batgirl; who’d been attacked by the Joker to hurt Bruce, also, but as Selina had never been particularly close to that one she hadn’t ever thought about what had happened to her. But the Oracle ran a Birds of Prey, Selina found out one night, as she met the former Spoiler, now Batgirl, and the Black Bat. The Cat hadn’t ever encountered them, it’d been an interesting night, which only landed her in her lover’s bed, and her score thwarted again. Don’t ask her how because she was trying to figure that out still.

The year of the biggest change came when Bruce and she decided to try the dating thing rather than just their normal rooftop tango which landed them in bed. She and Bruce had been at this for so long that dating was still terrifying, but it seemed… it seemed safe. Or at least it did Talia al Ghul reared her head again, Selina had been out of Gotham at the time; L.A. on a job. She’d come back to find herself looking at a very angry, tiny version of Bruce in her apartment.

The kid’s name was Damian Wayne, he had olive skin, and sharp green-blue eyes, she wouldn’t go so far as to say green or blue for there was a shade of ice and a shade of emerald in those eyes. He was waiting for her when she walked into her apartment.

Yeah, she’d gotten the heads up from a cut up, frustrated, angry Dick Grayson who apparently was not thrilled about his latest youngest sibling. Selina had only half listened to him at the time but found herself looking at Damian now.

“So you’re the harlot mother warned me about, you don’t look like much,” was the first words out of the kid’s mouth.

At that moment Bruce appeared, which was good for the kid because for the first time in Selina’s memorable life she wanted to knock a kid’s lights out. After Bruce had dragged Damian, no, Robin, away she’d encountered a frustrated Timothy, who’d also been hiding in her place (Selina felt she needed to get a new place if all the kiddies were just popping in now). A tub of ice cream and ranting later, Tim, now Red Robin, leapt off her balcony which had her about to shut it when her lover appeared. Selina cocked her hip and demanded to know just what the hell was going on with him and the newest kid and everything.

They’d spent most the morning going over what had happened and Selina really despised Talia (apparently she was more than a lover to Bruce, who had apparently married her about fifteen years ago but that had shattered after a miscarriage). Talia had shown up about ten years ago and drugged Bruce, Selina remembered then that time Bruce had just shown up at her place wigged out, apparently that’s what that’d been about and Damian was a product of it. Selina didn’t like it, neither did Bruce, however, Bruce was determined to be a father, even if how the boy had come about wasn’t how he’d wanted.

“The boy’s innocent, he doesn’t deserve the backlash of what is between Talia and I,” he said awkwardly. And Selina remembered right then just what it was she had loved about this man, and Jason’s death hadn’t snatched it away, just buried it. She smiled as she rested her head on her lover’s shoulder then and they sat in silence together. She was proud of Bruce, very proud of him for taking this child in, and taking this on.

Though she wouldn’t tell him how much she loved him, or inform him of how proud of him she was, she showed him all morning and most of the day until Alfred called with a WE emergency.

Selina tried to like the new Robin, but the kid was not making it easy, and as the next few months slipped by she felt it was a herculean task. Almost a year had slipped by and she only knew one thing for certain about the newest Wayne, and Robin:

The Kid Was A Handful.

Which was why her lover and hers’ relationship was more scattered, moments more desperately stolen in the shadows, and their carelessness for the need came about. They’d had more than one slip up in their desperation for a moment or two without one of Bruce’s many kids interrupting them. Funny, she really missed the days when her biggest worry was if Bruce would pocket her score when he was distracting her. Now it was trying to get a moment around Dick, Barbara, Cassandra, Tim, Stephanie, and Damian, how the hell had she gotten tangled up with a man who had so many damn kids!? And better yet, why did she care about them, and think of them as her own in small ways? Thoughts for different times though as Bruce spun her around as they fell off a roof, her lips on his as she wrapped around him, knowing he’d catch them. They landed on a secluded rooftop finally and she pinned him as she frantically, and careless worked them free. Time was limited at this point, none of the kids were around and she needed him. Again they were careless, forgetting years of protection in their need, not that they had cared at the time.

Which was why she supposed that’s what brought her to today as she stood in her bathroom staring at the results.

Two pink lines.

“Shit,” she sighed as she dragged her hand through her short hair. Barely dating, on-again-off-again lovers, and frienemies, but nothing strenuously serious was between them. Until now as she stared at the damning stick and wondered how she was going to tell Bruce. This was going to further complicate them and their rooftop dances. Sighing her head fell back as she just breathed, she could handle this, and Bruce, and his brood, but for right now, she wasn’t going to think about it as she heard her balcony doors open and she dropped the stick in her linen closet towels as she poked her head out to see her lover walking in. A rare night when he came to her place, and dawn was peeking out now, so patrols were over.

“Heyya lover boy! Miss me!?” she asked as she smiled at him.

No words, not that she expected any from the Bat, as he cupped the back her head and caught her mouth. No words were needed for the rooftop dance, or the spark between them, it was too old and familiar to need words as she hopped into his arms with glee.

Worries for another day left her mind as she decided to enjoy her lover.


	2. Truth or Happiness

Bruce didn’t know if it was love, at least not the kind his parents had possessed. But it was a need, it was something he’d come to think of as vital to his person and life.

The first time he ever saw that curly haired thief she’d stared at him with those jaded eyes and smirked as if she knew ten ways to kick his ass and never break a sweat. But that was, as he would later come to learn, Selina Kyle’s mask. The jaded cynic, the street girl who had probably more compassion and kindness in her than most of the charitable snobs he had associated with before her. Selina was the first person, aside from Alfred, he’d come to think of as a friend. Though that was not easy. Selina never made anything easy, and it was infuriating trying to reason with her that she didn’t have to be where she was, he’d give her what she needed. She never took the offer, though she took everything else, and he kept up a step behind her. Dogging her heels with determination to understand this witty, tough, determined girl.

The first time she saved his life she’d run, and he had followed. He had wanted Alfred, he had wanted to know his last family was still alive, but Selina had kept him alive and they’d run. Kids on the run, and it was Bruce’s first encounter with the streets. It wasn’t like the movies or the books, it wasn’t a Charles Dicken’s novel, it was so much worse. And, oh, how he had wanted to help those people, but Selina had kept him focused as she dragged him along despite his protests and wants to help the people. Selina was a realist, and reality was hitting him hard then. If Selina hadn’t been there dragging him with her, he’d have been dead. Bruce knew that, and he had then come to rely on Selina to help him dispose of the naïve, sheltered rich kid he had been to become something more.

However, she didn’t want to help him, but his persistence wore on the stubborn girl which had him running on the rooftops through the city after her. Selina was always just a step a head of him no matter how quick he was, and she’d toss that smirk at him over that shoulder before she’d leap without fear.

He wanted to be like that. No fear. So he tore after her, leaping to fly even when he was terrified that he’d miss or he’d die that chase or he’d lose her.

Selina and his’ first real fight and argument was about a girl, shocking. Silver to be precise. Bruce remembered how hurt he’d been that his friend couldn’t like a girl he, himself, was coming to like. Turned out he should have listened more to Selina and from then on avowed that he’d never let another girl or person get between them and their friendship. Selina was his friend, and he would trust her more. Or he hoped he would.

The moment they went from being friends to something else was when he was sixteen. School had finished for the summer, and Alfred was visiting family in England; Bruce had promised no trouble. After all, most of his time was now spent on learning hand to hand combat, the inner workings of technology, and reading everything there was on forensic science; or business. Selina had slipped soundlessly into the Manor, and that was the start of it. She’d snorted at something he’d said, looking a bit lost, amused, and bored all at once and he’d bent over on impulse. The kiss wasn’t something unfamiliar to him, he’d had a few, but none ever felt like this. Selina had taken it from there and Bruce was more than happy to lay back and let her take the lead because outside of the locker room stories he’d heard, and the books he’d read, he had no idea what he was supposed to do. Apparently neither did Selina, but that first time… what a ride.

He recognized her to be a distraction, one which would detract from his goals, and his mission.

He left. He had decided Truth was all he would ever want in life, no matter how lonely, or painful, or terrible it could be. He would find truths in life. Of course, he would miss Selina, she was a friend, a very dear friend, but he could afford no distractions.

Traveling the globe, learning, studying, practicing, and excelling he met hundreds of people, lived different walks of life and he thought he fell in love once. And he might have stayed with Talia if she hadn’t told him to go, taking his choice away again. Happiness brought him nothing but pain as Talia had so accurately shown as she screamed at him to leave. Bruce decided he really did not need the happiness others sought, he’d had his taste of it, it was glorious, but happiness faded. Truths never left.

He was in Paris on his way to Gotham, twenty-five, and looking up at the city in calculating awe when he saw her.

Everything in him was alert as he saw her, streaking over the rooftops with ease, and grace, looking like a sleek feline dressed in black. A smirk tugged his lips reflexively, he knew who that was, he knew that form, especially when she leapt over head of him, never wavering as people shouted to stop. His heart was in his throat when he thought she’d miss her landing point, but he knew Selina never missed as she hit the other roof and disappeared into the night.

The headline the next morning made him smile.

‘Mysterious Cat Burglar steals the Cat’s Eye Emerald!’

Bruce supposed some things never changed, and he started following Selina’s rising career as a cat burglar. She had definitely improved, there were no clues eluding to her identity according to the authorities.

He returned to Gotham after his twenty-sixth birthday as he greeted Alfred; whom he hadn’t seen in the ten years since he’d left. Implementing his plans into actions were not easy, lots of trial and errors, but he was a quick study. And for a year he started working on bringing about a real difference as crime rates in Gotham dropped. Slowly he earned the begrudging respect of James Gordon, and Bruce was pleased because honestly Jim was the only cop Bruce felt he could really trust. And for a year he worked on being the Batman while keeping up Brucie Wayne’s socialite persona to seduce women, and look like a billionaire playboy. He also worked on rooting out the corruption in Wayne Enterprises.

The first time he encountered Selina he had been amused. She clearly didn’t know it was him, but, damn!, that was part of the thrill. He could finally out match her, keep up with her, and even outdo her, and the thrill of that had him going easy on her as he palmed her diamond and she bolted. Of course he bought the damn thing, it was something he’d give to her if she were to ever figure out who he was. Until then, he would enjoy going toe to toe with her. Selina was still a wild little thing, and she was fast, he found it thrilling.

She was also surprisingly flirtatious with him, which threw him for a hell of a loop. It also was very distracting, but not distracting enough. The Cat he was coming to know, the Selina she grew into, she was the same spitfire she’d been as a kid. And it was interesting. Just now she used her femininity to her advantage, clearly having made it a weapon like everything else about her always had been.

The first kiss he’d gotten from her had startled him so much that he tripped as he desperately grabbed a grappling hook to keep them from going splat. He’d whispered her name in shock, she’d clearly been stunned too, because he managed to snatch her prize away and bolt. Part of him was terrified she’d figure out it was him, but another part wanted her to know it was him. The confliction would have driven him mad had he not had other worries.

He successfully took his company back, completely, while surgically removing the corruption like the cancer it was.

The first encounter he had with Selina since the kiss and slip of her name was actually by her design, she was waiting for him in the museum she was robbing, she tossed him a smile and a wink and the chase was on. Somehow that chase ended with her kissing him; again, and saying ‘later loverboy!’ as she disappeared into the Gotham night. As these encounters started escalating he was confident she didn’t know who he was, and she never made a move to remove his cowl.

However, he knew she knew who he was on the first night they met up as civilians in eleven years. Brucie, who had seen many gorgeous women, and who reportedly had many lovers, had literally vanished the night he was working that party over for a cause he felt needed attention. Usually he pulled being Brucie to get what he wanted, but the moment Selina walked into that museum, dressed in something black, looking gorgeous was the moment Brucie had vanished.

Her curls were gone, her dark hair cut in a pixie style, her lips red, and her athletic form was gorgeous. She had grown up beautifully, and as this was the first time in eleven years he was seeing her without her mask, he took in her eyes. Those cat green eyes which were usually obstructed by her goggles.

“It’s been a very long time, Miss Kyle,” he approached her from behind once he was sure she was relaxed and when she wasn’t expecting it. She merely tilted her head back as she smiled.

“Not as long as you’d like me to believe,” she replied. And he knew then, she knew exactly who he was, and who she’d been making out with on the rooftops. “Been a while kid, how’s life treatin’ ya!”

He laughed hearing that thick Gotham in her voice as she gave him a mischeivious look which usually landed them running on rooftops as kids. “I suppose alright, and you?”

He felt her take his watch and smiled at her innocent look. “You know me, always surviving.”

“Uh-huh, you can return my father’s watch to me, Selina,” he dryly informed her. She dangled it by her fingers then.

“Just wanted to see if I had taught you anything,” she promised.

He forgot how exasperating the woman could be. And he forgot how good it felt to just have her near. Have her brutal honesty, and sharp tongue for company. That was the thing he’d come to love about her when they were kids. He also kind of wanted to kiss her right here, right now, as Bruce Wayne, and not the Bat. He wanted to have that again, but he wasn’t going to reach for her or the attraction, or the possibilities she gave him. No, he would stick to the truths. And the truth here was, she was the best friend he’d ever had besides Alfred.

Catching up to her had been fun, and it’d been relaxing. It reminded him why they’d been friends.

Two weeks after running into Selina he’d gone to the circus, he had many outings he was required to do, but ever since his time as a kid with is parents he went to the circus. This was the first time in twenty years he went. What he witnessed was something else.

Another boy orphaned through brutal means, Bruce wasn’t going to stand for it.

He took the kid in after many legal battles, and brought Richard home two months after the incident.

Richard Grayson, he preferred to be called Dick, was a ball of energy. Honestly, Bruce had had no idea what he’d been signing himself up for, and he hadn’t known that it would be so difficult to take care of a child, but he was trying. Dick was just such an active, angry, little ball of never ending energy, Bruce found himself looking for a way for the kid to channel it. That had brought Dick to his parents’ murderer, and wanting the man punished. And when Dick found out he was Batman the need in the kid grew and Bruce found himself hunting down Tony Zucco before Dick did. Mostly because the kid had gotten fed up with him and waiting, made a costume and ran off. Bruce had been frantic.

After catching Zucco Bruce decided to train the kid before letting Dick ever hit the streets or out of his sight again.

It was about now Bruce met the man in blue, and Wonder Woman. Clark, or Superman, had come imposing into his city with Lex, when Lex had come aiming to merge with Wayne Enterprises. Naturally this had been a disaster and Bruce/Batman, kicking both Superman/Clark and Lex Luthor out of his city. Goddamn it, didn’t they get that the city was beat up enough!?

Bruce ran into Selina during this time when she’d used Dick’s communicator to get in touch with him saying she had his bird. After everything with Superman and Luthor, Bruce had been trying to keep Dick as both Dick and Robin, out of the city and out of harms way! Frantic to get to Dick he’d broken every speeding law ever made and grappled up to a rooftop where he found Selina and Dick both sitting on the ledge…

Eating ice cream.

“I think this baby bird flew the coop, Bats,” Cat smiled.

“I’m not a baby!” Dick snapped at Selina.

“You’re so tiny, and you’re a baby, squirt, get used to it,” she countered and Bruce just sighed as he collected Dick and took him back to the Cave.

The next night he spent getting an earful from Selina about this, as she chased him on the rooftops. To get her to leave it alone he ended up shoving her against a brick wall and kissing her; just to get a moment without her yelling at him. That did not effectively shut her up, but she did listen to him as he explained, carefully, what was going on with Dick and why the kid was Robin now. It was not by his choice and he was going to make that clear. She didn’t like it, wasn’t happy about it, but agreed to let him do his best with Dick, and not interfere. Though he knew she would look out for his baby bird too.

She seduced him again shortly thereafter and their game manifested into a too complicated relationship of Cat and Bat, the chase, the thrill, a lovers moments, and friends/enemies. It was enough to spin his head, but it kept him on his toes so he chased it, because Selina didn’t hide herself with lies, Selina was a truth and he found it very attractive. She wasn’t going to change who she or lie about what she was to him, and he needed that in his life.

Their game brought him to her bed, not the other way around often, and he kind of preferred it that way. Dick couldn’t question it then. That was the last thing he needed to be worrying about, or explaining to his ward, no, it was better how this thing between him and Selina didn’t drag Dick around with them. Selina was fond of Dick, and Bruce didn’t want the kid hurt by complications of outside factors.

Also, Selina was his favorite lover, he didn’t have to hide who he was with her, he could just be himself, which was not someone he showed to the public. Ever.

When Dick was sixteen he ran away, and Bruce was frantic as he tore apart Gotham, then he got a ping in Blüdhaven. Alfred couldn’t go with him at the time because of an incident that had landed the older man in the hospital. So Bruce dragged Selina along with him, she was a friend, she knew Dick, and she wouldn’t let him do something stupid. She tried to reason with him, but the entire trip he merely focused on getting to Dick, needing to make sure his… ward? son? child?... was safe. That’s all Bruce wanted to know, he needed to know.

Blüdhaven did not go as Bruce had hoped.

Dick wasn’t coming home, and the shouting match between them was of epic proportions, but Bruce relented because he couldn’t force Dick to come home. Well, that wasn’t true, but Bruce very much doubted that hogtying Dick and tossing him in the car would be productive. Instead he went home, brood over the words exchanged before carefully thinking over how to support Dick, and keep him safe.

Failure wasn’t an option. Even when Dick’s false papers were flagged by him as getting accepted into the Police Academy.

Bruce survived without Dick for a month.

Then Bruce met a little punk stealing his tires. The kid had some balls stealing three of the Batmobile’s tires and was working on the fourth, chucking a tire iron at him, and then; after Bruce literally had the kid dangling by the grimy sweatshirt, the sass. The boy had a hell of a mouth on him, and was funny, a hard, jaded look in his eye which made him think of Selina though and Bruce wanted to help the boy out.

What Bruce did not expect with Jason:

  1. The humor, the kid make him laugh, even when life was going to hell the boy made him laugh.
  2. Jason’s enthusiasm about school; Dick had hated school and Bruce had had to literally drag Dick out of bed for school, but Jason would be up and ready before Bruce even finished his morning coffee.
  3. The fights, Jason’s and his fights could be legendary in comparison to what he’d gone through with Dick.
  4. Jason’s love of Robin. Dick had grown to dislike the mantle, but Jason… Jason loved it, and thought it was magic.



It wasn’t easier with Jason, no, the kid had his own issues, anger, mistrust, fear of abandonment, and his skittish nature; not to mention the smoking habit Jason seemed to indulge in, and he was only twelve.

But overall, Jason was light, he was a bundle of enthusiastic life, and he oh how Bruce fell in love with that kid. Jason was his kid, and Bruce felt the same pride in Jason that he felt for Dick and he wanted to see the kid succeed, to thrive, to live, and Jason was. The only thing Bruce wished was that Dick and Jason would get along, to see that they could be brothers, that it wasn’t a competition, but they wouldn’t. It was like putting gasoline and fire together with Dick and Jason, and nothing Bruce did could relieve it.

Also, interestingly, Selina took to Jason fast; even if she’d ripped him a new one after she found out. She was pissed with Dick, and on Dick’s behalf, and Bruce would have never heard the end of it, if Jason and Selina hadn’t hit it off so well, so fast, and became thick as thieves. Selina loved Dick and Jason, and Bruce sometimes wondered why they liked her more than him, but then remembered he was the parent figure, and that made him the enemy at times. Not that he minded.

He also liked that Selina was involved with his boys, even if their complicated thing wasn’t involved with the boys. He thanked everything that there was that Selina was around even if she just loved taking things that didn’t belong to her, and she didn’t mind going to team ups against him with his enemies. It was just how Selina was, and Bruce was coming to like that about her; even when he didn’t like her being his enemy.

Talia came to town, it was the first time since the miscarriage that he’d seen her, since she’d ended their relationship. And Bruce, for a moment, let his guard down as he remembered how much he’d loved the assassin.

His first mistake was letting himself reminisce about her and him, his second was that a small part of him still trusted the terrorist’s, Ra’s al Ghul’s, lethal, ruthless, merciless daughter. And the third mistake, he let his guard down.

Whatever happened that night he only had vague memories, Talia over him, a machine, her just taking and he couldn’t stop her. But all these memories were snippets, discombobulated, and mismatched like he’d been drugged. And knowing Talia he was betting that had been the case.

Bruce had fled the morning when he woke up alone, on the library floor with nothing on, not even a blanket, and he’d gone to the second safest place he knew where he wasn’t likely to freak his boys out with his panic. Bruce ran to Selina’s penthouse and hid out there as he furiously tried to piece that night together, to no avail. Selina walked in, after a trip; Moscow if the headlines were to be believed for what she stole and they just stared at one another as she called Dick, Alfred, and Jason before she just sat with him. For a long time neither said anything, and he left that night before Jason could patrol alone. Because Jason would do that without hesitating.

The years with Jason blurred, and everything was alright.

Until it wasn’t.

God, Bruce didn’t know where he screwed up, he didn’t know how badly he’d screwed up until he dug through the rubble to find his boy, battered, burned, and broken, shielding his biological mother; who was alive. Bruce saved Shelia, if only because Jason had died saving her, and he told her to never come near him or his family again, and if she tried to use Wayne Enterprises for anything, he’d destroy her. The woman was the reason he’d lost his son, and he would destroy her if she ever came near him or his family again.

Coming home from Ethiopia hurt, God, it killed him. That coffin, his boy’s body in it, and Jason wasn’t even fifteen yet!

If losing his parents had been painful, losing Jason… fuck that was killing him.

Bruce had a hard time burying Jason, willingly putting Jason with his mother, Catherine Todd, rather than in the Wayne Family Graveyard (where Bruce wanted his son). But Jason would want to be with his mother, and Catherine might not have been his biological mother, but Bruce knew that from the way Jason had talked, Catherine was the mom who had counted.

“I’m sorry,” he cried when he was alone.

Bruce would have killed the Joker if Clark hadn’t stopped him, Diana kept an eye on him. Not that it would help. Bruce hated them all, did they not understand!? He’d buried his SON! His Boy! His Kid! He’d Lost His Fucking World! The Joker Could Burn In Hell For That!

The Darksied invasion came soon after then, and Bruce found an outlet for his uncontrollable rage. They beat the invaders back, and for the first time the official Justice League was formed. Superman, Wonder Woman, himself, Star City’s Arrow, Central City’s Flash, a Green Lantern, the King of Atlantis, a Martian. There were other heroes, but the world posted them as the founders. Clark Kent had married Lois a few years back, they had an infant son, and Bruce had been asked to keep all civilian identities off record for this reason. Diana lived as Diana Prince, her story was one he was still learning about. Oliver Queen and Barry Allen were already known for doing team ups on occasion, had been for nearly eight years. Hal Jordon was apparently a part of some intergalactic police force and the Air Force. J’onn J’onzz was the only Martian of his race, a survivor of Mars who’d sought Earth as his home. And Arthur Curry, he was the reluctant King of Atlantis after having taken the thrown from his half brother Orm.

A new little light reached him with Timothy Drake, a shock and an annoyance and an infuriation for Bruce as it’d only been six months since Jason had died, and now Timothy was dogging his heels in a homemade suit, and insisting on being Robin if Dick wouldn’t. The kid was pushy.

But a near miss with Two-Face had Bruce taking the kid under his wing and giving into the kid’s persistent ways. Selina would have torn him a new one, except, he didn’t see her. Tim claimed to have met her, but Bruce hadn’t seen her since before Jason’s death. He kind of missed having her tear into him about the kids and giving him a piece of her mind, even if she was annoying. However, space was needed for both of them, Jason had meant a great deal to the two of them, and losing Jason…

Bruce knew it wasn’t ever going to lessen, it might eventually be a dull ache but the pain of it was never going away.

On Jason’s birthday he found a little trinket, Selina’s. Bruce cried, propped up on that headstone he cried. Catherine might have hated him for failing her son, but the dead couldn’t hate. Still Bruce begged the woman to forgive him, and for Jason to forgive him.

The winter was harsh, the spring came, and a crippling blow came on April twenty-seventh when he’d almost lost Tim because of the Joker. Bruce had nearly broke, Tim was safe, and at home with his father, Dick was in Blüdhaven, and Bruce needed a break. He walked into Selina’s penthouse for the first time in over a year, and saw his friend, she’d been crying as well.

No words were said as they fell onto the bed, and not a touch exchanged as they just held on and weathered the worst day of the year.

He kissed her temple before he left her sleeping at the crack of dawn.

May started the Robin war between Dick and Tim, and Dick stole the Robin suit as he ran off to San Francisco to form the Titans. Bruce didn’t approve, especially not of a Cyborg, Alien Princess, Shape Shifter, and Demon all being on a team with his son; but his dislike of this development fell on deaf ears.

Tim thought the Titans were amazing, and Bruce knew he was never going to win that competition.

Then tragedy struck again when Tim’s father was murdered, not knowing a better solution, Bruce adopted Tim quickly. And that was a whirlwind of drama with the media, one Bruce wasn’t fond of but endured because taking Tim in was for the best, and it was the right thing to do.

A few months after Jack Drake’s death Bruce found Selina. He just wanted a truth, and Selina never lied about who, or what she was, to him even if she didn’t always tell him the truth. She was the most honest person he knew aside from maybe Clark.

That night, he just needed her, needed a moment, uncomplicated by life, and the cowl, and everything else. She gave it to him, and for the first time since a tent in the desert, he felt the closest to happy. He didn’t think he’d ever be happy, but right now, right in this moment, he was pretty close as the kiss he had planted on her lead to a weekend. Refamiliarizing themselves with old patterns they knew, old pleasures that still felt fresh, and just enjoying the weekend. That weekend he was just Bruce, and she was just Selina, and they weren’t playing their games, or toying with one another, they were just together for the moment.

Soon after that weekend their rooftop chases resumes, sometimes ending in quickies, sometimes ending with him losing her, or him taking her prize and eluding her.

Selina took to looking out for Tim too, she guarded the kid carefully, and Bruce didn’t think she knew she did that. But most villains stayed away from Tim if she was around him, or if Bruce was. The newest baby bird was safe, and nothing was going to happen to him.

Tim brought Stephanie, at the time she was Spoiler, into the family, and while Bruce was not fond of the mouthy young woman, she made Tim happy so Bruce would tolerate it. Barbara really took to Stephanie though after Bruce ‘fired’ Stephanie for faking her death, and keeping them all out of the loop with Dr. Thompkins help.

And then Bruce found Cass, he didn’t expect to take in the Assassins’ daughter, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Cass needed a home, and a family, and Bruce was fond of the young woman.

Tim joined the Titans.

And somewhere in this time Dick and Bruce had come to terms, and yes, Bruce had legally filed to adopt a grown man, Dick may be his eldest, but now he was legally the youngest. Jason was Bruce’s eldest legally speaking, and Bruce had those papers he never had a chance to give to him, tucked away safely in the desk in the study.

Dick was now Nightwing, again, but in a less flamboyant costume than he’d originally had (Thank God!). Tim and Dick were good, they actually acted like brothers, and had since Tim had taken on being Robin. Cass worked with Barbara and Stephanie most nights, as Black Bat, and Barbara had given Stephanie Batgirl. Bruce was content.

Of course the invasion of the Red Hood had everything shattering in his world, faster than it could have ever crumbled.

The Red Hood knew ever vital point to hit on him, knew how to make him bleed and remember the pains of his failures, the Red Hood had destroyed him. And it seemed so effortless for the stranger, and Bruce couldn’t even figure out who the Hood was this time.

No DNA, No Photo Recognition, No Dental, No Prints, No Nothing.

The Hood didn’t exist, and Bruce tore after the young man to try to stop him as he built up his crime empire. And make no mistake, that was what the Hood was doing. The empire he was building was built on the ashes of the Black Mask’s crumbling empire. And whoever the young man was, he was lethal, he was good, he was smart, and he was fucking fearless.

And Bruce felt like he was one step behind, again.

At least, he did until he caught a break.

Black Mask sicced the Joker on the Hood, and the Hood had captured the Joker. What Bruce hadn’t expected was where the Hood had taken the Joker, or the reveal.

There stood Jason, seventeen, sharp features, tears staining his face, and those eyes… Bruce never thought he’d even see those eyes again, only this time instead of joy they burned with anger. A Rage Bruce couldn’t stop or dampen, and not with Jason’s killer laughing right there. The judgement call came, and Bruce was going to save Jason from himself, but first he had to get the Joker away from Jason to reason with him.

Bruce barely got the Joker out of the building when it blew.

And Jason was gone again. Dead, again. and Bruce couldn’t… he couldn’t handle this as he put the Joker into a body cast before stalking away. He went to Selina’s.

Selina came home shortly after he’d gotten there, and Bruce… Bruce needed a truth, he needed to feel alive when he felt so dead inside as he released it all on her. Selina weathered it, no worse for wear, as she gave as good as she got. And she never wavered or asked him about it, even as he dressed in spare clothes he had there and left her behind to go to work as Bruce Wayne.

It was another year before he and Selina had a shift in their relationship.

Bruce had actually been invited to Barry’s wedding and he’d stopped to think about his own relationships. None of the socialites counted, not as relationships. It was a fuck and goodbye, and that was only when he was sure he’d get away without them stripping him. His only serious relationship was with a woman who had betrayed him, and his trust, and was an ex-wife of sorts. Also, he hadn’t heard from Talia in years, he was aware she was alive, but not much else. And as to a serious, long term, committed relationship… he just didn’t have any.

Unless he counted Selina, though they weren’t committed, and it was complicated.

But thick and thin, since he was twelve he’d had Selina to count on. He had always chased after that independent woman, and she drove him insane. Also, she liked his kids, all of them, which was something Bruce knew Talia didn’t do because that night she’d whined about Jason and Dick. Then there was the sex, the sex with Selina was some of the best he’d ever had in his life. Not to mention, she was a friend, she was a nice companion, and around her… around her there were no lies about who they were, which was a nice change.

After Barry’s wedding Bruce seriously went about getting Selina to date him. It wasn’t easy, and not much changed between them with this added element, but it felt right.

Not happiness, but it felt right. And his kids liked her, which was one less complication in his life.

Everything was going well until Talia came to town. He had been getting his ass kicked by Killer Croc, and then she was just there. Bruce had reluctantly agreed to meet her. cringing at being in the same general area as this woman.

He’d learned his lesson, and he wasn’t ever going to let his guard drop for her. Ever.

She had acted seductive, and yes, she was a beautiful woman, however, he cringed at her touching him even in the slightest way as she shoved her away from him and kept her at arm’s length. She hadn’t gotten the hint, and he had been floored when she pulled the curtains back for him to see a nine year old boy, who looked like him, with green-blue eyes and olive skin. The kid stared at him expectantly.

“Father.”

Everything in him screamed imposter, he had three sons, Dick, Jason, and Tim, and though Jason was dead again he was his son. However, that was not fair to this child, even if Bruce had a feeling this kid was not conceived the night he couldn’t remember. So he accepted his son, if only to keep him from Talia, no doubt she’d warped his mind and brainwashed him. Bruce would not fail another child of his.

He just didn’t know how to succeed either.

Dick gave Damian Robin, after the fiasco with Damian running around like an Assassin, and Selina met Damian, Tim had run off to the Titans then, and everything was snowballing. Bruce wanted to go back in time and demand his father to tell him how he balanced all this, but he couldn’t, and Alfred and he were trying. Desperately trying.

It was after he told Selina everything that he expected her to throw in the towel; he’d kept this huge part of his life from her, and she had every right to leave.

She didn’t, instead, she stayed.

Selina Kyle, the most elusive woman ever, stayed, Bruce was shocked. He was floored. He was baffled. He was also relieved. It wasn’t happiness, not by a long shot, but damn did it feel right.

His family was complicated, and the rooftop chases between him and Selina got to being desperate. They got careless, Bruce hadn’t noticed that carelessness until one night when he was already in Selina and his mind screamed 'Condom!', but it was too late by then. His lover hadn’t even seemed to care as she kissed him, fixed her suit and ran.

Bruce noticed it after they got careless, five months after having Damian shoved on him. The way Selina was napping more, the smells which revolted her (coffee, and since they both lived on coffee it was concerning), and how she was slowing down a bit. He suspected the first morning she got sick, and she said it was a bug. Bruce didn’t think so, but wouldn’t invade her life to confirm; yet, as he quietly arranged for all the kids to go to the Titans under the guise of training. Well, that was a legitimate reason, but getting Selina and him alone was an alternative reason, even as he landed on her balcony and walked in to tell her Damian, Tim, Stephanie, and Dick would be with the Titans.

She poked her head out from the bathroom and smiled. “Hey lover boy! Miss Me!?:

Bruce pulled her up for a hard kiss because he couldn’t think of what to say, and he never did say the right thing, so he kissed her. She was wrapped around him fast and secure as they stumbled into the wall.

He’d wait until she brought the pregnancy up, he could wait for when she was ready.


End file.
